1849: Two months after "Annabel Lee" was published, Edgar Allan Poe was found in a tavern in Baltimore, muttering incoherently. He was admitted to the hospital, where he died four days later.

Today: Despite the claims of earlier biographers who wrote that Poe had been on a self-destructive drinking binge, modern historians guess that his condition probably had a physiological cause, such as a stroke.

1849: The discovery of gold in California the year before sparked a "Gold Rush" to that territory. Seventy-seven thousand people, dubbed '"49ers," rushed to California that year, traveling across unpopulated plains and the Rocky Mountains. California mines yielded $450,000,000 in gold.

Today: California is the most populous state in the union, with over ten million more people than the next most populous, New York.

1849: The safety pin was invented by Walter Hunt, also known for inventing the sewing machine and the paper disposable shirt collar...